Lily Luna Matchmaking Services Ltd
by evergreeneyes
Summary: Rose has been avoiding Scorpius Malfoy for seven years, and he's getting desperate. So desperate, in fact, that he makes a trip to the offices of Lily Luna Matchmaking Services Ltd. Scorpius/Rose, one-shot, rated T for language, features lots of Lily :


Lily looks up from the papers she has been comparing, her face already lit with a large, welcoming smile, her hands starting to close the files even as her eyes drift to the door, where her receptionist has just announced the arrival of her next appointment.

The smile slips from her face and she goes pale with shock, making her freckles stand out dramatically against the white skin. White hot rage sweeps through her like a poison, and she has to clench her teeth not to spit at him.

_In her mind, a normally strong girl sobs into the pillow of her cousin's bed._

"What are you doing here, Malfoy?" she spits out.

"Why do you think I'm at the offices of the most renowned matchmaker in all of Wizarding London?"

"Firstly, Scumbag, I am the most renowned matchmaker in all of Wizarding _England_, and secondly, I don't have time to hex your balls off because Mr Cardew wi -"

The harsh words look wrong coming from her pretty face, but Scorpius is used to it.

"I am Mr Cardew."

Her eyebrows furrow. She does not like to be corrected, but even more she does not like to be interrupted. The last time he interrupted her, they were standing near the entrance to the Great Hall, and she was yelling at him. She punched him when he interrupted. That was seven years ago; she wonders if the same response would be appropriate now. But she remains seated, and his nose remains unbroken.

"Of course; a snake never changes its coat."

"On the contrary, some species -"

"Malfoy, get out of my office," the sentence is long and drawn out, each word bitten out, her tone low. Scorpius briefly entertains the idea that she is able to Bat Bogey hex him just with angry words.

"No," his stance is cocky, his nose held a little higher than usual. "I have paid for this hour, and I shall be using it."

He stalks over to the chair on the other side of Lily's desk, and seats himself in it with unnecessary force.

"I'm looking for a girlfriend."

"You have plenty of admirers; you don't need to force me to exercise my self-restraint for an entire hour." He notices that her eyes flick to the door of her office, as if expecting to see a horde of Scorpius Malfoy fans harassing her receptionist.

"I said I was looking for a girlfriend, not a fling."

_Lily sees a pair of distraught eyes. A few red curls, which belong to the owner of the eyes, stick to damp cheeks._

She sighs heavily, and reluctantly produces a few pieces of parchment from a drawer. Picking up a quill, all the while eying him with contempt, she stabs it a little too forcefully into her ink pot, and the nib breaks. On the second attempt, she manages it, and scratches 'Scorpius Malfoy' onto the parchment.

Not moving her eyes from the questions on the sheet, she asks "Sexuality?"

"Rose is a girl, is she not?"

The quill pierces a hole through the parchment.

"Yes, but you were not exactly very loving to her, were you?"

She is quite sure that she hears a crackle, and when she looks up the blond appears to be fighting the urge to strangle her.

"Fine; heterosexual," she concedes as she writes.

"Desired characteristics in a partner? Don't worry, I already know that one; big tits and no brain. Preferably well-known arch-nemesis to pretty, genuine, intelligent girl who loves your sorry arse, for reasons her cousins cannot grasp."

Her quill pot explodes.

"Intelligence," he hisses.

"Pardon?"

"Intelligence. That's my desired characteristic."

Lily raises one elegant auburn eyebrow sceptically, but records his answer nonetheless.

"Feistiness. Independence. Beauty. Loyalty. Kindness."

Lily thinks she might hurl him through the glass wall behind her. The image of his body landing in the middle of Diagon Alley, ten storeys bellow, blood pooling around his head, is worryingly satisfying.

She mumbles under her breath.

"Pardon?"

"I said," she bites out. "You had all of that, Dickhead."

The glass in the wedding photograph on her desk explodes, but she stands her ground. His gaze is horribly hard and penetrating, and every millimetre of his ugly grey eyes irritates her. Finally, he blinks and she lowers her head again.

"Preferences pertaining to physical appearance?"

Without missing a beat, he answers "Red hair."

On second thoughts, he isn't worth the clean up job; a nice, quick avada would be much better.

"Short."

Perhaps she should castrate the cheating bastard first.

"Curly hair."

_The image of Rose lying on her younger cousin's bed resurfaces, and Lily can see her own hand stroking her friend's beautiful hair in a comforting manner. It still makes her angry._

"Blue eyes."

_Her cousin's blue eyes are downcast at the next meal, as they sit opposite each other at the Gryffindor house table. Only once, just as desert appears, does Rose's gaze flicker over to the Slytherin table. In a matter of seconds, tears are dripping down onto her apple pie. She runs from the room._

"Her nose must flick up slightly at the end."

_A small part of the memory rises up from the recesses of Lily's mind, one she hasn't thought of in a while. Scorpius's usually impassive face takes on a strange expression as he watches Rose flee. She can't quite put her finger on what it portrays, mostly because the answers her mind offers up do not sound like something the Slytherin would be capable of feeling. Scorpius runs after Rose._

"Pale skin."

_By the time she reaches the entrance to the Gryffindor common room, Scorpius Malfoy is banging his fists against the portrait of the Fat Lady (who seems to have fled). He is yelling, screaming for Rose to come out, and saying lots of things which are normally said by someone who actually has a heart. Lily turns back, and retreats before he can notice her._

"Only one dimple."

_When she returns, Malfoy is still outside the entrance, slumped on the floor, resting his head against the wall. She ignores both his presence and her urge to kick him, and murmurs the password to the portrait. Before she knows it, he is climbing in after her, although his eyes were closed mere moments before. His wand is pressed against her back to keep her moving forwards._

_When they enter the common room, he leaves her before she can swing around and hex him, charging towards the staircase to the girls' dormitories. He deftly places the body bind curse on the four Gryffindors who try to stop him, and returns the punches of James, Albus, Hugo and Fred blow for blow, even though the numbers are far from being in his favour. Matilda Longbottom levitates his unconscious form to the Hospital Wing five minutes later._

_For the final two months of that school year, before Rose and Scorpius graduated, Lily couldn't help but see that the blond boy had bags under his eyes which she had never noticed before. He didn't seem to be eating at meals, and his hair gel had been forgotten. He was probably just busy studying for NEWTs, though. He couldn't possibly miss Rose._

"Exactly fourteen freckles on her right thigh."

She's angry again. Strong Rose hid it well, and perhaps only Lily knew, but she pined over him for years. _Years_. She spent years rejecting second dates from her admirers, while at the same time stoically avoiding Gringotts, where the man she had dated for just over one year worked as a curse-breaker. Now, she seemed to be finally over him.

Lily smacked her palm down on the dark wood table.

"You can't have her!" She was yelling now, and she didn't care. "She's happy with William!"

"She isn't. Rose would never want a boring relationship with a boring ex-Gryffindor Ministry lackey. She won't want a clichéd white wedding, two children and a holiday a year."

Lily bristled at the insinuation that he knew her cousin better than she did.

"And you would know that how? You haven't even seen her since you graduated, Malfoy. You think she wants someone like you instead? Someone who cheats on her with some Slytherin slut? A Slytherin slut who had always made it her mission to taunt her about her hair and our family, no less?"

"Ask me, Potter."

"It's Longbottom now," she responds automatically.

"Ask me, Longbottom."

Her other palm joins the one which is already flat against her desk, and she stands, leaning towards him angrily.

"Why? So you'll give me some bullshit about you being scared of commitment because Daddy hit you when you were little?"

"You bitch; my father never hit me! How dare you assume things about my family?" He was standing too, now. "I cheated on her for no good reason, I don't have an excuse, but it was once. Once! It meant nothing to me. I was seventeen, and yeah, maybe I was scared of what I felt," at this Lily snorted "but it was _once_. I was faithful to her for a year before that! Do you have any idea how long I'd been faithful to one woman before, Potter?" She almost corrected him again, but his tirade continued. "A week at the most. It was one mistake!"

Lily was livid, her face crimson as her fists clenched and unclenched, her shoulders shaking with the rage she was trying to contain.

"So because you've behaved worse to other women, that makes it better?"

"No! But I have been bloody pining for seven years, Potter. You _know_ what Rose and I had was special. And I'm a crap, cowardly Slytherin, and I was too chicken to try and find her before, and I kept thinking, I kept _promising_ myself that I'd forget her, but I bloody well can't. She must miss me. She _has_ to miss me."

For the briefest moment, desperation was etched into every angle of his pointy features, but he soon recovered his customary poker face.

He let out a long breath. "I can see that you're not going to help me."

He turned on his heal and began to storm towards the door.

_Rose was in Lily's mind again, a teenage Rose. She was laughing gently, her features glowing, her smile more radiant than it had been in a long time, as a tall, blond boy swooped down and pressed his lips to her cheek, and then her nose, and then her forehead._

"Flat 3B, 14 Otter Way, Kensington."

He paused and turned to face her again. All was silent as they surveyed each other. It looked, she thought, like the corners of his mouth were twitching, and his eyes seemed to shine a little brighter.

Of course, all of this must have been in her mind, because she knew that Malfoy never smiled.

Although, he _was_ smiling eight months later, when he arrived at the Burrow for Christmas dinner, a beaming Rose hanging off his arm.

**A/N:**** Of course, reviews are greatly appreciated, and I hope that you will all take a look at the forum I have set up, The Butterbeer Club; it is a place for recommendations, challenges, general Harry Potter chat and to leave plot bunnies.**


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